As most Grist readers know by now, a few giant corporations essentially control the meat industry -- they lock up the bulk of the profits and impose harsh terms on farmers, workers, livestock, and the environment. The meat they produce evidently damages those who eat it as well.
Things aren't much different in the fresh fruit and vegetable world.
In Florida, the ever-excellent Eric Schlosser shows in a New York Times op-ed piece, the migrant farmworkers who harvest the bulk of the nation's winter tomatoes are about to see their already-poverty-level wages slashed this holiday season. Out west, the Delta Farm Press reports, farmers are losing money selling peaches for 40 cents a pound wholesale -- which big-box chains and supermarkets then turn around and sell for $3.00/pound.
In both cases, huge corporations are flexing their might, using their power as dominant buyers to suck the bulk of the profit out of the food chain. They leave behind crumbs for farmers -- and even less for farmworkers.
Why are tomato growers in Florida plotting to slash wages? Schlosser puts it well:
Florida's tomato growers have long faced pressure to reduce operating costs; one way to do that is to keep migrant wages as low as possible. Although some of the pressure has come from increased competition with Mexican growers, most of it has been forcefully applied by the largest purchaser of Florida tomatoes: American fast food chains that want millions of pounds of cheap tomatoes as a garnish for their hamburgers, tacos and salads.
In 2005, as Schlosser reports, tomato pickers got their first raise in more than a generation after a protracted battle waged by a Florida farm-workers' union called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The raise amounted to a penny for every pound the laborers managed to pick -- a significant boost to worker income.
In order to squeeze that penny out of the farmowners, the union knew it had to target the fast-food chains who buy most of the tomatoes. If the price farmers received for their tomatoes didn't rise, they literally couldn't afford to pay the workers more. So the Coalition of Immokalee Workers opened negotiations with Taco Bell, which (after a long boycott) finally agreed to pay the extra penny. In 2007, McDonald's fell into line.
But Burger King has steadfastly refused to pay up -- and now Florida's largest tomato growers group, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, has used Burger King's intransigence as an excuse to scuttle the deal with the other fast-food giants. Thus the workers will no longer get the extra penny per pound -- leading to pay cuts of 40 percent. Ceding the raise would cost Burger King $250,000 per year -- a rounding error in its annual profits.
Schlosser, in his expert muckraking way, traces Burger King ownership to the august Manhattan offices of Goldman Sachs, whose CEO last year earned the biggest bonus in Wall Street history and will likely do even better this year.
Burger King's refusal amounts to a massive and seemingly nihilistic show of force -- it singlehandedly wields enough buying power in the tomato market that it can on a whim nearly halve the wages of thousands of poverty-level workers. Meanwhile, the situation out in California with peach growers is all about Wal-Mart and big supermarkets throwing their weight around.
At a recent conference, the Delta Farm Press reports, a stone-fruit farmers group official had this to say:
One-third of the industry is still losing money, and one-third is breaking even, and one third is making money.
That means two-thirds of farmers are losing money or just breaking even. Why do the big retailers impose such ruinous prices on farmers? Because they can.
The large retailers need to make high profit margins on fresh produce to offset the low margins they earn by selling processed foods. The processed-food industry is itself highly consolidated, dominated by a few giants like Kraft. It's easier for Wal-Mart and its ilk to low-ball a bunch of peach farmers than is to squeeze the likes of Kraft. So Wal-Mart drives a hard bargain on produce. Or, as the stone-fruit grower put it, "The margins for produce continue to carry the load for the rest of the items in the supermarket."
If peaches go for 40 cents a pound on the wholesale market, I wonder what peach pickers make out in California. As always, farmers try to make up for low prices by producing more, hoping to make up on volume what they're losing on price. I wonder what sort of environmental compromises they're making in order to boost yields in those tomato fields and peach orchards.
Addendum: It should be noted that Burger King recently rolled out a $1 double cheeseburger.
New book looks at economic devastation in an Iowa meat-packing town
Farm lobby: Shoot the climate bill, but keep the Peterson goodies
Comments
View as Flat
Martha Hagood Posted 10:19 am
29 Nov 2007
A topic I welcome
I appreciate this article very much. As one who lives off of the produce aisle at the supermarket during the winter, I have often wondered about the back-story of the food. What about vegetables that aren't implicated in the crimes of the fast food robber barons? Is kale virtuous? Sweet potatoes?
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 4:29 am
01 Dec 2007
Come on down to the Sunshine State
Activists protest Burger King in Miami
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers kicked off the protest Friday morning outside the downtown Miami headquarters of Goldman Sachs, one of the private equity firms that own a stake in Burger King. The group then headed north on Biscayne Boulevard. At the peak of the daylong march, which stretched nine miles, there were about 600 people marching through the streets of Miami.
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
http://www.ciw-online.org/2007_BK_March/index.html
The migrant workers who couldn't come to Miami on Friday because they feared losing their jobs sent their worn shoes which lined the median across from Burger King's Miami corporate headquarters next to a sign, ``Doubt our poverty. Walk in Our Shoes.''
The shoes were just one visual symbol in the protest and rally organized by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The aim is to expose the unfair wages and working conditions in the fields where Burger King's tomatoes are picked by migrant workers.
Read the Palm Beach Post special report on babies who were born disfigured to mothers and fathers who work in Florida's pesticide laden fields ~
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/news/speci ...
The "Exploitation King" protest brought together union members, student activists, religious groups, migrant workers and others.
The newly revived Gainesville Students for a Democratic Society organized two vans to join the protest on the streets of Miami.
Gainesville SDS is doing a good job. On October 23rd in Gainesville, in honor of the national day of action "No War No Warming," Gainesville SDS marched to the steps of Tigert Hall (UF Administration Building) to demand the University of Florida stop funding war profiteering and environmentally destructive corporations.
After the UF event, Gville SDS and community members marched down W. University Avenue to City Hall to protest Gainesville Regional Utilities' proposed biomass plant, the approval process for which was unanimously approved by the City Commission on October 8th.
The marching students carried a stretcher that held a small block of ice, which symbolized the last remaining ice sheet in the Arctic. Other students carried a coffin symbolizing the end of our forests.
Former Gainesville Mayor Tom Bussing and I drove behind the line of protesters. From the steps of City Hall, Tom spoke in opposition to the proposed wood and garbage burner and in favor of conservation, efficiency and solar.
It was a fun event. We were delighted that UF students were involved in local political environmental matters, the first I've seen in all my years in Gainesville.
You can read a little more about the Gville SDS event here ~
UF students march for change
http://www.gainesvillesun.com/article/20071023/NEWS/71023 ...
Read about the Miami "Exploitation King" protest and see the slide show here ~
http://www.miamiherald.com/103/story/327600.html
The plight of South Florida sugarcane workers is similar to those toiling in the toxic tomato fields.
The video, 'The Hidden Story of Big Sugar" takes the position that, other than gold, no single substance has had a bigger hand in shaping the history of the western hemisphere than sugar. The video shows the dark history and modern power of the world's reigning sugar cartels.
The Fanjuls, the Fanjul sugarcane operations in Florida and the Dominican Republic, Bill Clinton and Carl Hiaasen are featured in the film.
The Hidden Story of Sugar can be viewed here ~
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/1 ...
Also read about THE PRICE OF SUGAR, narrated by Paul Newman ~
http://www.thepriceofsugar.com/press.shtml
and
The Sugar Babies
http://www.sugarbabiesfilm.com/cgi-local/content.cgi?p=10 ...
And finally, you've got to hear our "New State of Florida Song" by Grant Peeples.
Grant has four terrific Florida songs on this MySpace link
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.view ...
Grant's website is ~
http://www.grantpeeples.com
Karen Orr
Gainesville, Florida
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 9:22 am
01 Dec 2007
Re: Come on down to the Sunshine State
I forgot to include a few lines in Grant Peeple's "New State of Florida Song."
"We've got federally subsidized sugar plantations
That are bigger n' richer than most European nations
They own the politicians and hire all the Haitians
And that's what ya call a SWEET DEAL"
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.view ...
The lyrics to some of Grant's songs are on his website
http://www.grantpeeples.com
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Biodiversivist Posted 9:44 am
01 Dec 2007
Let's hope Burger King
pays for this one with a consumer backlash.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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mrfrazzlebottom Posted 4:28 pm
04 Dec 2007
Re: Come on down to the Sunshine State
Thanks for that post. This had completly passed under my radar.
As a side note, I have been in and traveling around New England for the last 20 years and have seen a sharp increase in the amount of farmers markets in the past few years, in rural areas as well as in large towns and cities around Boston.
It seems that there are several farmers markets in every county I passed through this year (I've been traveling all summer and into the fall).
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